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Overview

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A Top Ten Amazon Best Book of the Year for TeensNew York Times BestsellerA Junior Library Guild Selection of the Year

* "Taylor continues to build an irresistible fantasy world in this grim sequel to her masterful Daughter of Smoke & Bone...Taylor's dazzling writing and skill at creating suspense are strong as ever; fantasy lovers will gobble up this book with satisfaction."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

* "The future of Karou, her ill-fated romance with Akiva, and the survival of both of their races await readers in the concluding volume; it promises to be a doozy."—The Horn Book, starred review

* "Taylor manages to make a five-hundred-page epic read at a breakneck speed that will have readers struggling to finish in one sitting. This sequel to Daughter of Smoke & Bone will paradoxically satisfy readers' desire for more of Karou's story while leaving them begging for the third installment."—VOYA, starred review

* "The impossible choices each character faces compel readers to consider the fission when ethics slam into power, creating a chain reaction of pain and grim, uncertain outcomes that must be worked through even if chances for hope on the other side are slim. Of course, [readers will be left] in breathless anticipation for the next installment, but the intensity of this middle piece is a satisfying feast all on its own."—BCCB, starred review

"It is written masterfully and filled with poetic lyricism that tricks you into believing you are reading a classic. The book is melancholy and the pain of the characters is so etched into the pages that after you put the book down you find yourself hovering in dark corners, muttering to yourself about the cruelty of the world. But don't let that put you off from reading what will become a classic in literature in the decades to come, for sure. I am eagerly awaiting book three. Mrs Taylor! Bring it on!"—Fantasy Book Review

Fantasy Book Review

"It is written masterfully and filled with poetic lyricism that tricks you into believing you are reading a classic. The book is melancholy and the pain of the characters is so etched into the pages that after you put the book down you find yourself hovering in dark corners, muttering to yourself about the cruelty of the world. But don't let that put you off from reading what will become a classic in literature in the decades to come, for sure. I am eagerly awaiting book three. Mrs Taylor! Bring it on!"

Chelsey Philpot

Any book that opens with "Once upon a time" is inviting high expectations. It's a phrase that inevitably evokes fairy tales and leather-bound classics about epic adventures, setting up the anticipation that readers will discover worlds filled with magic…In this case, the story that follows…is a breath-catching romantic fantasy about destiny, hope and the search for one's true self that doesn't let readers down. Taylor has taken elements of mythology, religion and her own imagination and pasted them into a believably fantastical collage.
—The New York Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly

Taylor continues to build an irresistible fantasy world in this grim sequel to her masterful Daughter of Smoke & Bone. The war between chimaera and seraphim is in full force, with Karou reluctantly playing an essential—and painful—role. Having realized her destiny, she is now living it; feeling alone, abandoned, and betrayed, she is harder of body and of heart. Alternately focusing on Karou and her estranged love interest, the seraphim Akiva, Taylor traces their parallel discouragement at the perpetuation of bloodshed between their peoples. Since the first book is, at heart, a love story and a journey of self-discovery, its fans may be surprised to find this one is primarily a war story, filled with battle scenes, killings, anger, and hatred. The occasional scenes with Karou’s Czech friends Zuzana and Mik bring welcome moments of lightheartedness and humor. Taylor’s dazzling writing and skill at creating suspense are strong as ever; fantasy lovers will gobble up this book with satisfaction, even if it offers less of the cross-genre appeal that made its predecessor so extraordinary. Ages 15–up. Agent: Jane Putch, Eyebait Licensing & Literary Management. (Nov.)

Children's Literature
- Karen McCoy

Karou knows she's different from her fellow art students in Prague. But it's not just because of her indigo blue hair, beaded necklace full of wishes, or the eye-shaped tattoos on her palms. She also completes otherworldly errands for Brimstone, her beast-like guardian who trades in teeth throughout the land of Elsewhere. But who is Karou really? And where exactly is Elsewhere? When teeth start to go missing, and burned hand prints appear on doors, these questions plague Karou as she finds herself in the middle of a supernatural war, fighting deathly battles while making sure her wishes don't run out. At the center is Akiva, irresistibly handsome with a blood-torn past. As Karou and Akiva stop fighting long enough to fall in love, their bond starts to put them at risk—and Karou must decide where her true loyalties lie. The book explores some important overall themes, including intolerance based on ignorance, the futility of war, and the undying power of hope. While it weaves together interesting mythical story elements into an intricate narrative, it is sometimes unclear how some details, while beautifully written, fit into the overall plot. Hvam's narration of the unabridged story is compelling even though her use of thick dialects and distinct character voices can be a bit overwrought at times. Still, this is an enthralling start to a series "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" that will leave readers wondering what Karou will do after she finally finds out the truth. Available as 10 CDs, Playaway and in a digital version. Reviewer: Karen McCoy

VOYA
- Heidi Uphoff

Laini Taylor intertwines a secret fantasy underworld with the cobbled streets of Prague in her latest book, Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Karou is living every young artist's dream as an art student in Europe, where her beauty, blue hair, and tattoos draw eyes to her wherever she goes. Karou slips away from this dreamland to a real fantasy world where she collects teeth for a surly demon-like creature, Brimstone. A chance encounter with the angel, Akiva, begins to unravel the mystery of Karou's origin and Brimstone's magic. This book is a breath of fresh air for fans of supernatural romance. While the first part of the book follows quirky Karou along her adventures, the latter half delves into the idea of forbidden romance and war between seraphs and chimaera, or angels and demons, that is as old as time. While the writing becomes a little convoluted in the second half's section on mythology, it gives strength to the story. Taylor provides depth and backstory to her characters, and forces readers to consider the power of hope and the price of wishes. Young adults who enjoy fantasy, romance, and mystery will find this book difficult to put down. Daughter of Smoke & Bone is a great start to a promising series. Reviewer: Heidi Uphoff

VOYA
- Rebecca Denham

Having remembered the events of her former life as a chimera, Karou returns to Eretz only to discover that the chimeran city of Loramendi has been reduced to ashes, its citizens dead. Grieving and heart-sick, Karou joins forces with the White Wolf and his surviving band of rebels. In the war between angel and chimera, shades of grey abound and Karou must discover the truth if there is to be any chance of peace, or redemption. Taylor casts a spell with her writing, drawing readers into a world of angels and chimera, heroes and monsters, where nothing is as simple as black and white, and the fates of two universes are in peril. Taylor's world is lush, sensual, and wonderfully original, featuring flawed characters and emotionally fraught decisions sure to resonate with readers. Karou is a strong, passionate main character driven by her own convictions even in the face of great loss and hardship, while Akiva is a warrior with a bloody past seeking redemption. Secondary characters are given personalities just as complex and serve as interesting alternative perspectives for readers. Issues of redemption, salvation, love, war, and morality make this novel perfect for classroom or book club discussion. Taylor manages to make a five-hundred-page epic read at a breakneck speed that will have readers struggling to finish in one sitting. This sequel to Daughter Of Smoke And Bone (Little, Brown, 2011/Voya October 2011) will paradoxically satisfy readers' desire for more of Karou's story while leaving them begging for the third installment. Ages 15 to 18.

Library Journal

Pity Karou and Akiva, for the love between this chimaera and angel resulted in the annihilation of an entire people. At the conclusion of Daughter of Smoke and Bone (2011), Karou, a blue-haired art student in modern Prague, regains her memory and rejects the angel Akiva, who, in Karou’s previous incarnation, was both her lover and the instrument of destruction for her beastly kind. Now that Karou knows the truth about her beloved, she hardens her heart and makes plans to avenge the many deaths. Akiva, despondent over this turn of events, holds onto the hope that there is some future beyond their present struggle. Furthering the story’s appeal are Zuzana and Mik, human friends of Karou who serve as a comic foil to the serious weirdness surrounding her. Weighing in at over 500 pages, this second installment answers some burning questions left hanging from the first and sets the stage for a thrilling conclusion. [Film rights for Daughter of Smoke and Bone have been bought by Universal Pictures, with Joe Roth producing.—Ed.]

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Rebellion foments in secret places in this complex sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Little, Brown, 2011). The battle between chimaera and seraphim moves from one world to another as estranged, star-crossed lovers Karou and Akiva struggle to stem the rising tide of annihilation embraced by their respective leaders. While Karou attempts to resurrect the chimaera army in a remote Moroccan kasbah, in a parallel world Akiva desperately seeks to atone for his past by warning civilians fleeing the advancing seraphs. Occasionally overwrought language is leavened by humor supplied by Karou's human friends, Zusana and Mik, who arrive at the kasbah and make unlikely places for themselves among the resurrected chimaera. The dream of peace cherished lives ago by Karou and Akiva achieves a shaky foothold when chimaera soldiers and seraph rebels reluctantly unite to battle the greater evil: Jael, the psychopathic new emperor of the angels, who is poised to invade the human world in his search for powerful weapons. Assassinations, betrayals, and revelations drive the plot through decoratively ornate prose that sometimes slows the pace, but deepening characterizations anchor the action, and the emotional and political stakes are higher. Multiple worlds teeter on the edge of apocalypse, unaware that a curious magic is reaching out from past exile to affect the present. The rising tension of the coming battle overtakes the unexceptional unrequited love story to make this a suspenseful, satisfying sequel.—Janice M. Del Negro, GSLIS Dominican University, River Forest, IL

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Blue-haired Karou is 17, and, in addition to her unusual tresses, has other intriguing aspects to her personality. She supports her life as an art student in Prague by running errands for her foster parent, a supernatural chimera named Brimstone. These errands, which take Karou through strange portals to strange places to meet with even stranger individuals, reap rewards not only of money, but also wishes. Taylor builds a thoroughly tangible fantasy world wherein a complex parallel universe competes with far-flung geographic locales for gorgeously evoked images. Karou herself is a well-rendered character with convincing motivations: artistic and secretive, she longs for emotional connection and a sense of completeness. Her good friend Zuzana goes some way toward mitigating Karou's solitude, but a sour breakup with beautiful bad boy Kaz has left her feeling somewhat bereft. Taylor leads readers from this deceptively familiar trope into a turbulent battle between supernatural species: angel-beings seek the destruction of demonlike chimera in revenge for the burning of the archive of the seraph magi. The more Karou discovers about the battle, however, the less simple good and evil appear; the angels are not divine, the chimera are not evil, and genocide is apparently acceptable to both sides in this otherworldly war. Initially, the weakest part of the story appears to be the love story between Karou and Akiva, an angel of "shocking beauty"; there is little to support their instant bond until their true connection is disclosed. The suspense builds inexorably, and the philosophical as well as physical battles will hold action-oriented readers. The unfolding of character, place, and plot is smoothly intricate, and the conclusion is a beckoning door to the next volume.—Janice M. Del Negro, GSLIS Dominican University, River Forest, IL

Kirkus Reviews

In this emotionally intense if loosely woven sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone (2011), Taylor puts Karou, a chimaera resurrected into the body of a blue-haired human teenager, through severe tests of both heart and soul. Sundered from her seraphic lover Akiva by rage, guilt and a huge blood debt, Karou has led charismatic chimaera leader Thiago, the White Wolf, to a refuge in the Atlas Mountains. With her magical skills, she provides him with a band of reanimated warriors to protect the remaining chimaera back in the world of Eretz. But Thiago is more bent on vengeance--even at the cost of seeing his people exterminated in reprisals. On Eretz, Akiva is driven by abhorrence of the general slaughter to plot an attempt on his cruel emperor's life. And meanwhile on Earth, to no evident purpose beyond comic relief ("What?…I was starving and our hostess was passed out on the bed with a hot monster boy"), Karou's street-performer friends Zuzana and Mik show up suddenly, having tracked her to North Africa. Ultimately violent events, revelations and no few contrivances drive both the war and the central romance ("As ever when their eyes meet, it is like a lit fuse searing a path through the air between them") into new phases. Mostly about licking wounds in the wake of the opener's savage inner and outer conflicts, but well-endowed with memorable characters and turns of phrase. (Fantasy. 14 & up)

Meet the Author

More by this Author

Laini Taylor is the New York Times bestselling author of Days of Blood & Starlight, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, the Dreamdark books Blackbringer and Silksinger, and the National Book Award finalist Lips Touch: Three Times. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter, Clementine. Her website is www.lainitaylor.com.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

1

THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE

Prague, early May. The sky weighed gray over fairy-tale rooftops, and all the world was watching. Satellites had even been tasked to surveil the Charles Bridge, in case the… visitors… returned. Strange things had happened in this city before, but not this strange. At least, not since video existed to prove it. Or to milk it.

“Please tell me you have to pee.”

“What? No. No, I do not. Don’t even ask.”

“Oh, come on. I’d do it myself if I could, but I can’t. I’m a girl.”

“I know. Life is so unfair. I’m still not going to pee on Karou’s ex-boyfriend for you.”

“What? I wasn’t even going to ask you to.” In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained, “I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him.”

“Oh.” Mik pretended to consider this for approximately one and a half seconds. “No.”

Zuzana exhaled heavily through her mouth. “Fine. But you know he deserves it.”

The target was standing ten feet in front of them with a full international news crew, giving an interview. It was not his first interview. It was not even his tenth. Zuzana had lost count. What made this one especially irksome was that he was conducting it on the front steps of Karou’s apartment building, which had already gotten quite enough attention from various police and security agencies without the address being splashed on the news for all and sundry.

Kaz was busily making a name for himself as the ex-boyfriend of “the Girl on the Bridge,” as Karou was being called in the wake of the extraordinary melee that had fixed the eyes of the world on Prague.

“Angels,” breathed the reporter, who was young and pretty in the usual catalog-model-meets-assassin way of TV reporters. “Did you have any idea?”

Kaz laughed. Predicting it, Zuzana fake-laughed right along with him. “What, you mean that there really are angels, or that my girlfriend is on their bad side?”

“Well, she was so secretive you wouldn’t believe it. I mean, I don’t even know her nationality, or her last name, if she even has one.”

“And that didn’t bother you?”

“Nah, it was cool. A beautiful, mysterious girl? She kept a knife in her boot, and she could speak all these languages, and she was always drawing monsters in her—”

Zuzana shouted, “Tell about how she threw you through the window!”

Kaz tried to ignore her, but the reporter had heard. “Is it true? Did she hurt you?”

“Well, it wasn’t my favorite thing that’s ever happened to me.” Cue charming laughter. “But I wasn’t hurt. It was my fault, I guess. I scared her. I didn’t mean to, but she’d been in some kind of fight, and she was jumpy. She was bloody all over, and barefoot in the snow.”

“How awful! Did she tell you what happened?”

Again Zuzana shouted. “No! Because she was too busy throwing him through the window!”

“It was a door, actually,” said Kaz, shooting Zuzana a look. He pointed at the glass door behind him. “That door.”

“This one, right here?” The reporter was delighted. She reached out and touched it like it meant something—like the replacement glass of a door once shattered by the flung body of a bad actor was some kind of important symbol to the world.

“Please?” Zuzana asked Mik. “He’s standing right under the balcony.” She had the keys to Karou’s flat, which had come in handy for spiriting her friend’s sketchbooks from the premises before investigators could get their hands on them. Karou had wanted her to live here, but right now, thanks to Kaz, it was too much of a circus. “Look.” Zuzana pointed up. “It’s a straight drop onto his head. And you did drink all that tea—”

“No.”

The reporter leaned in close to Kaz. Conspiratorial. “So. Where is she now?”

“Seriously?” Zuzana muttered. “As if he knows. Like he didn’t tell the last twenty-five reporters because he was saving this excellent secret knowledge just for her?”

On the steps, Kaz shrugged. “We all saw it. She flew away.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it, and looked right into the camera. He was so much better-looking than he deserved to be. Kaz made Zuzana wish that beauty were something that could be revoked for bad behavior. “She flew away,” he repeated, wide-eyed with fake wonder. He was performing these interviews like a play: the same show again and again, with only minor ad-libs depending on the questions. It was getting really old.

“And you have no idea where she might have gone?”

“No. She was always taking off, disappearing for days. She never said where she went, but she was always exhausted when she came back.”

But Kaz didn’t shut up. Turning back to the reporter, he said, “The only good thing is that I can use it in my work. The longing, the wondering. It brings out a richer performance.” In other words: Enough about Karou, let’s talk about me.

The reporter went with it. “So, you’re an actor,” she cooed, and Zuzana couldn’t take it any longer.

“Zuze, what are you…” Mik started, but she was already striding off. He followed.

And when, three minutes later, a pink balloon plunged from above to land squarely on Kazimir’s head, he owed Mik a debt of gratitude, because it was not “bladder tea” that burst all over him. It was perfume, several bottles’ worth, mixed with baking soda to turn it into a nice clinging paste. It matted his hair and stung his eyes, and the look on his face was priceless. Zuzana knew this because, though the interview wasn’t live, the network chose to air it.

Over and over.

It was a victory, but it was hollow, because when she tried Karou’s phone—for about the 86,400th time—it went straight to voice mail, and Zuzana knew that it was dead. Her best friend had vanished, possibly to another world, and even repeat viewings of a gasping Kaz crowned in perfume-paste and shreds of pink balloon couldn’t make up for that.

Pee totally would have, though.

2

ASH AND ANGELS

The sky above Uzbekistan, that night.

The portal was a gash in the air. The wind bled through it in both directions, hissing like breath through teeth, and where the edges shifted, one world’s sky revealed another’s. Akiva watched the interplay of stars along the cut, preparing himself to cross through. From beyond, the Eretz stars glimmered visible-invisible, visible-invisible, and he did the same. There would be guards on the other side, and he didn’t know whether to reveal himself.

What awaited him back in his own world?

If his brother and sister had exposed him for a traitor, the guards would seize him on sight—or try to. Akiva didn’t want to believe that Hazael and Liraz could have given him up, but their last looks were sharp in his memory: Liraz’s fury at his betrayal, Hazael’s quiet revulsion.

He couldn’t risk being taken. He was haunted by another last look, sharper and more recent than theirs.

Karou.

Two days ago she had left him behind in Morocco with one backward glance so terrible that he’d almost wished she’d killed him instead. Her grief hadn’t even been the worst of it. It was her hope, her defiant, misplaced hope that what he’d told her could not be true, when he knew with an absolute purity of hopelessness that it was.

The chimaera were destroyed. Her family was dead.

Because of him.

Akiva’s wretchedness was a gnawing thing. It was taking him in bites and he felt every one—every moment the tearing of teeth, the chewing gut misery, the impossible waking-nightmare truth of what he had done. At this moment Karou could be standing ankle deep in the ashes of her people, alone in the black ruin of Loramendi—or worse, she could be with that thing, Razgut, who had led her back to Eretz—and what would happen to her?

He should have followed them. Karou didn’t understand. The world she was returning to was not the one from her memories. She would find no help or solace there—only ash and angels. Seraph patrols were thick in the former free holdings, and the only chimaera were in chains, driven north before the lashes of slavers. She would be seen—who could miss her, with her lapis hair and gliding, wingless flight? She would be killed or captured.

Akiva had to find her before someone else did.

Razgut had claimed he knew a portal, and given what he was—one of the Fallen—he probably did. Akiva had tried tracking the pair, without success, and had had no option, ultimately, but to turn and wing his way toward the portal he himself had rediscovered: the one before him now. In the time he had wasted flying over oceans and mountains, anything might have happened.

He settled on invisibility. The tithe was easy. Magic wasn’t free; its cost was pain, which Akiva’s old injury supplied him in abundance. It was nothing to take it and trade it for the measure of magic he needed to erase himself from the air.

Then he went home.

The shift in the landscape was subtle. The mountains here looked much like the mountains there, though in the human world the lights of Samarkand had glimmered in the distance. Here there was no city, but only a watchtower on a peak, a pair of seraph guards pacing back and forth behind the parapet, and in the sky the true telltale of Eretz: two moons, one bright and the other a phantom moon, barely there.

Nitid, the bright sister, was the chimaera’s goddess of nearly everything—except assassins and secret lovers, that is. Those fell to Ellai.

Ellai. Akiva tensed at the sight of her. I know you, angel, she might have whispered, for hadn’t he lived a month in her temple, drunk from her sacred spring, and even bled into it when the White Wolf almost killed him?

The goddess of assassins has tasted my blood, he thought, and he wondered if she liked it, and wanted more.

Help me to see Karou safe, and you can have every drop.

He flew south and west, fear pulling him like a hook, faster as the sun rose and fear became panic that he would arrive too late. Too late and… what? Find her dead? He kept reliving the moment of Madrigal’s execution: the thud of her head falling and the clatter of her horns stopping it from rolling off the scaffold. And it wasn’t Madrigal anymore but Karou in his mind’s eye, the same soul in a different body and no horns now to keep her head from rolling, just the improbable blue silk of her hair. And though her eyes were black now instead of brown, they would go dull in the same way, stare again the stare of the dead, and she would be gone. Again. Again and forever, because there was no Brimstone now to resurrect her. From now on, death meant death.

If he didn’t get there. If he didn’t find her.

And finally it was before him: the waste that had been Loramendi, the fortress city of the chimaera. Toppled towers, crushed battlements, charred bones, all of it a shifting field of ash. Even the iron bars that had once overarched it were rent aside as if by the hands of gods.

Akiva felt like he was choking on his own heart. He flew above the ruins, scanning for a flash of blue in the vastness of gray and black that was his own monstrous victory, but there was nothing.

Karou wasn’t there.

He searched all day and the next, Loramendi and beyond, wondering furiously where she could have gone and trying not to let the question shift to what might have happened to her. But the possibilities grew darker as the hours passed, and his fears warped in nightmare ways that drew inspiration from every terrible thing he had ever seen and done. Images assaulted him. Again and again he pressed his palms to his eyes to blot them out. Not Karou. She had to be alive.

Akiva simply couldn’t face the thought of finding her any other way.

3

MISS RADIO SILENCE

From: Zuzana <

rabidfairy@shakestinyfist.net

>

Subject: Miss Radio Silence

To: Karou <

bluekarou@hitherandthithergirl.com

>

Well, Miss Radio Silence, I guess you’re gone and have not been getting my VERY IMPORTANT MISSIVES.

Gone to ANOTHER WORLD. I always knew you were a freaky chick, but I never saw this one coming. Where are you, and doing what? You don’t know how this is killing me. What’s it like? Who are you with? (Akiva? Pretty please?) And, most important, do they have chocolate there? I’m guessing they don’t have wireless, or that it’s not an easy jaunt to come back and visit, which I hope is the case because if I find out you’re all gallivanting-girl and still haven’t come to see me, I might get drastic. I might try that one thing, you know, that thing people do when their eyes get all wet and stupid—what’s it called? Crying?

Or NOT. I might PUNCH you instead and trust that you won’t punch me back because of my endearing smallness. It would be like punching a child.

(Or a badger.)

Anyway. All is well here. I perfume-bombed Kaz and it got on TV. I am publishing your sketchbooks under my own name and have sublet your flat to pirates. Pirates with BO. I’ve joined an angel cult and enjoy daily prayer circle and also JOGGING to get in shape for my apocalypse outfit, which of course I carry with me at all times JUST IN CASE.

Let’s see, what else? *strums lip*

For obvious reasons, crowds are worse than ever. My misanthropy knows no bounds. Hate rises off me like cartoon heat waves. The puppet show is good money but I’m getting bored, not to mention going through ballet shoes like there’s no tomorrow—which, hey, if the angel cults are right, there isn’t.

(Yay!)

Mik is great. I’ve been a little upset (ahem), and you know what he did to cheer me up? Well, I’d told him that story about when I was little and I spent all my carnival tickets trying to win the cakewalk because I really, really wanted to eat a whole cake all by myself—but I didn’t win and found out later I could actually have bought a cake and still had tickets left over for rides and it was the worst day of my life? Well, he made me my own cakewalk! With numbers on the floor and music and SIX ENTIRE CAKES, and after I won them ALL we took them to the park and fed each other with these extra-long forks for like five hours. It was the best day of my life.

Until the one when you come back.

I love you, and I hope you are safe and happy and that wherever you are, someone (Akiva?) is making you cakewalks, too, or whatever it is that fiery angel boys do for their girls.

*kiss/punch*

Zuze

4

NO MORE SECRETS

“Well. This comes as a bit of a surprise.”

That was Hazael. Liraz was at his side. Akiva had been waiting for them. It was very late, and he was in the training theater behind the barracks at Cape Armasin, the former chimaera garrison to which their regiment had been posted at the end of the war. He was performing a ritual kata, but he lowered his swords now and faced them, and waited to see what they would do.

He hadn’t been challenged on his return. The guards had saluted him with their usual wide-eyed reverence—he was Beast’s Bane to them, the Prince of Bastards, hero, and that hadn’t changed—so it would seem that Hazael and Liraz had not reported him to their commander, or else the knowledge of it had simply not yet worked its way out to the ranks. He might have been more cautious than to just show himself with no idea what reception awaited him, but he was in a haze.

After what he had found in the Kirin caves.

“Should my feelings be hurt that he didn’t come and find us?” Liraz asked Hazael. She was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

“Feelings?” Hazael squinted at her. “You?”

“I have some feelings,” she said. “Just not stupid ones, like remorse.” She cut her eyes at Akiva. “Or love.”

Akiva didn’t know if that was true; he doubted it, but maybe Liraz felt fear less than most, and hid it better. Even as a child she had been ferocious, the first to step into the sparring ring no matter who the opponent. He had known her and Hazael as long as he had known himself. Born in the same month in the emperor’s harem, the three of them had been given over together to the Misbegotten—Joram’s bastard legion, bred of his nightly trysts—and raised to be weapons of the realm. And loyal weapons they had been, the three of them fighting side by side through countless battles, until Akiva’s life was changed and theirs were not.

And now it had changed again.

What had happened, and when? Only a few days had passed since Morocco and that backward glance. It wasn’t possible. What had happened?

Akiva was dazed; he felt wrapped in skins of air. Voices seemed to not quite reach him—he could hear them, but as from a distance, and he had the queer sensation of not being entirely present. With the kata he had been trying to center himself, to achieve sirithar, the state of calm in which the godstars work through the swordsman, but it was the wrong exercise. He was calm. Unnaturally so.

Hazael and Liraz were looking at him strangely. They exchanged a glance.

He made himself speak. “I would have sent word that I was back,” he said, “but I knew that you would already know.”

“I did know.” Hazael was vaguely apologetic. He knew everything that went on. With his easy manner and lazy smile, he gave off an air of nonambition that made him unthreatening. People talked to him; he was a natural spy, affable and egoless, with a deep and entirely unrecognized cunning.

Liraz was cunning, too, though the opposite of unthreatening. An icy beauty with a withering stare, she wore her fair hair scraped back in harsh braids, a dozen tight rows that had always looked painful to her brothers; Hazael liked to tease her that she could use them as a tithe. Her fingers, tapping restlessly on her upper arms, were so lined with tattooed kill marks that they read at a distance as pure black.

When, on a lark one night and perhaps a little drunk, some of their regiment had voted on whom they would least like to have for an enemy, the unanimous victor had been Liraz.

Now here they were, Akiva’s closest companions, his family. What was that look they shared? From his strange state of remove, it might have been some other soldier’s fate that hung in the balance. What were they going to do?

He had lied to them, kept secrets for years, vanished without explanation, and then, on the bridge in Prague, he had chosen against them. He would never forget the horror of that moment, standing between them and Karou and having to choose—no matter that it wasn’t a choice, only the illusion of one. He still didn’t see how they could forgive him.

Say something, he urged himself. But what? Why had he even come back here? He didn’t know what else to do. These were his people, these two, even after everything. He said, “I don’t know what to say. How to make you understand—”

Liraz cut him off. “I will never understand what you did.” Her voice was as cold as a stab, and in it Akiva heard or imagined what she did not say, but had before.

Beast-lover.

It struck a nerve. “No, you couldn’t, could you?” He may once have felt shame for loving Madrigal. Now it was only the shame that shamed him. Loving her was the only pure thing he had done in his life. “Because you don’t feel love?” he asked. “The untouchable Liraz. That’s not even life. It’s just being what he wants us to be. Windup soldiers.”

Her face was incredulous, vivid with fury. “You want to teach me how to feel, Lord Bastard? Thank you, but no. I’ve seen how well it went for you.”

Akiva felt the anger go out of him; it had been a brief vibration of life in the shell that was all that was left of him. It was true what she said. Look what love had done for him. His shoulders dropped, his swords scraped the ground. And when his sister grabbed a poleax from the practice rack and hissed “Nithilam,” he could barely muster surprise.

Hazael drew his great sword and gave Akiva a look that was, as his voice had been, vaguely apologetic.

Then they attacked him.

Nithilam was the opposite of sirithar. It was the mayhem when all is lost. It was the godless thick-of-battle frenzy to kill instead of die. It was formless, crude, and brutal, and it was how Akiva’s brother and sister came at him now.

His swords leapt to block, and wherever he had been, dazed and adrift, he was here now, just like that, and there was nothing muffled about the shriek of steel on steel. He had sparred with Hazael and Liraz a thousand times, but this was different. From first contact he felt the weight of their strikes—full force and no mistake. Surely it wasn’t a true assault. Or was it?

Hazael wielded his own great sword two-handed, so while his blows lacked the speed and agility of Akiva’s, they carried awesome power.

Liraz, whose sword remained sheathed at her hip, could only have chosen the poleax for the thuggish pleasure of its heft, and though she was slender, and grunted getting it moving, the result was a deadly blur of six-foot wooden haft edged in double ax blades with a spear tip half as long as Akiva’s arm.

Right away he had to go airborne to clear it, couch his feet against a bartizan, and shoot back to gain some space, but Hazael was there to meet him, and Akiva blocked a hack that jarred his entire skeleton and shunted him back to the ground. He landed in a crouch and was greeted by poleax. Dove aside as it slammed down and gouged a wedge out of the hardpan where he had been. Had to spin to deflect Hazael’s sword and got it right this time, twisting as he parried so the force of the blow slipped down his own blade and was lost—energy fed to the air.

So it went.

And went.

Time was upended in the whirlwind of nithilam and Akiva became an instinct-creature living inside the dice of blades.

Again and again the blows came, and he blocked and dodged but didn’t strike; there was no time or space for it. His brother and sister batted him between them, there was always a weapon coming, and when he did see a space—when a split-second gap in the onslaught was as good as a door swinging open to Hazael’s throat or Liraz’s hamstring—he let it pass.

Whatever they did, he would never hurt them.

Hazael roared in his throat and brought down a blow as heavy as a bull centaur’s that caught Akiva’s right sword and sent it spinning from his grip. The force of it ripped a red bolt of pain from his old shoulder injury, and he leapt back, not quickly enough to dodge as Liraz came in low with her poleax and swiped him off his feet. He landed on his back, wings sprawling open. His second sword skidded after the first and Liraz was over him, weapon raised to deal the deathblow.

She paused. A half second, which seemed an eon coming out of the chaos of nithilam, it was enough time for Akiva to think that she was really going to do it, and then that she wasn’t. And then… she heaved the poleax. It took all the air in her lungs and it was coming and there was no stopping it—the haft was too long; she couldn’t halt its fall if she wanted.

Akiva closed his eyes.

Heard it, felt it: the skirr of air, the shuddering impact. The force of it, but… not the bite. The instant passed and he opened his eyes. The ax blade was embedded in the hardpan next to his cheek and Liraz was already walking away.

He lay there, looking up at the stars and breathing, and as the air passed in and out of him, it settled on him with weight that he was alive.

It wasn’t some fractional surprise, or momentary gratitude for being spared an ax in the face. Well, there was that, too, but this was bigger, heavier. It was the understanding—and burden—that unlike those many dead because of him, he had life, and life wasn’t a default state—I am not dead, hence I must be alive—but a medium. For action, for effort. As long as he had life, who deserved it so little, he would use it, wield it, and do whatever he could in its name, even if it was not, was never, enough.

And even though Karou would never know.

Hazael appeared over him. Sweat beaded his brow. His face was flushed, but his expression remained mild. “Comfortable down there, are you?”

“I could sleep,” Akiva said, and felt the truth of it.

“You may recall, you have a bunk for that.”

“Do I?” He paused. “Still?”

“Once a bastard, always a bastard,” replied Hazael, which was a way of saying there was no way out of the Misbegotten. The emperor bred them for a purpose; they served until they died. Be that as it may, it didn’t mean his brother and sister had to forgive him. Akiva glanced at Liraz. Hazael followed his gaze. He said, “Windup soldier? Really?” He shook his head, and, in his way of delivering insults without rancor, added, “Idiot.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know.” So simple. He knew. Never theatrics with Hazael. “If I thought you had, I wouldn’t be standing here.” The haft of the poleax was angled across Akiva’s body. Hazael grasped it, wrenched it free of the ground, and set it upright.

Akiva sat up. “Listen. On the bridge…” he began, but didn’t know what to say. How, exactly, do you apologize for betrayal?

Hazael didn’t make him grope for words. In his easy, lazy voice, he said, “On the bridge you protected a girl.” He shrugged. “Do you want to know something? It’s a relief to finally understand what happened to you.” He was talking about eighteen years ago, when Akiva had disappeared for a month and resurfaced changed. “We used to talk about it.” He gestured to Liraz. She was sorting the weapons in the rack, either not paying attention to them or pretending not to. “We used to wonder, but we stopped a long time ago. This was just who you were now, and I can’t say I liked you better, but you’re my brother. Right, Lir?”

Their sister didn’t reply, but when Hazael tossed her the poleax, she caught it neatly.

Hazael held out his hand to Akiva.

Is that all? Akiva wondered. He was stiff and battered, and when his brother pulled him to his feet, another pain ripped from his shoulder, but it still felt too easy.

“You should have told us about her,” Hazael said. “Years ago.”

“I wanted to.”

“I know.”

Akiva shook his head; he almost could have smiled, if it weren’t for everything else. “You know all, do you?”

“No more secrets.” This came from Liraz, who still stood at a distance, grave and fierce.

“We didn’t expect you back,” said Hazael. “The last time we saw you, you were… committed.”

If he was vague, Liraz was blunt. “Where’s the girl?” she asked.

Akiva hadn’t said it out loud yet. Telling them would make it real, and the word caught in his throat, but he forced it out. “Dead,” he said. “She’s dead.”

5

A STRANGE MOON WORD

From: Zuzana <

rabidfairy@shakestinyfist.net

>

Subject: Hellooooo

To: Karou <

bluekarou@hitherandthithergirl.com

>

HELLO. Hello hello hello hello hello hello.

Hello?

Damn, now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve made hello go all abstract and weird. It looks like an alien rune now, something an astronaut would find engraved on a moon rock and go, A strange moon word! I must bring this back to Earth as a gift for my deaf son! And which would then—of course—hatch flying space piranhas and wipe out humanity in less than three days, SOMEHOW sparing the astronaut just so he could be in the final shot, weeping on his knees in the ruins of civilization and crying out to the heavens, It was just helloooooooo!

Oh. Huh. It’s totally back to normal now. No more alien doom. Astronaut, I just kept you from destroying Earth.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Lesson: Do not bring presents back from strange places. (Forget that. Do.)

Also: Write back to signify your continuing aliveness or I will give you the hurts.

Zuze

6

THE VESSEL

There was one place besides Loramendi, Akiva told Hazael and Liraz, that he had thought Karou might go. He hadn’t really expected to find her there; he had convinced himself by then that she had fled back through the portal to her life—art and friends and cafes with coffin tables—and left this devastated world behind. Well, he had almost convinced himself, but something pulled him north.

“I think I would always find you,” he had told her just days ago, minutes before they snapped the wishbone. “No matter how you were hidden.”

But he hadn’t meant…

Not like this.

In the Adelphas Mountains, the ice-rimed peaks that had for centuries served as bastion between the Empire and the free holdings, lay the Kirin caves.

It was there that the child Madrigal had lived, and there that she had returned one long-ago afternoon in shafts of diamond light to find that her tribe had been slaughtered and stolen by angels while she was out at play. The sheaf of elemental skins she’d gripped in her small fist had fallen at the threshold and been swept inside by the wind. They would have been turned by time from silk to paper, translucent to blue, and then finally to dust, but other elemental skins littered the floors when Akiva entered. No flash and flitter of the creatures themselves, though, or of any other living thing.

He had been to the caves once before, and although it had been years and his recollections were dominated by grief, they seemed to him unchanged. A network of sculpted rooms and paths extending deep into the rock, all smooth and curving, they were half nature, half art, with clever channels carved throughout that acted as wind flutes, filling even the deepest chambers with ethereal music. Lonely relics of the Kirin remained: woven rugs, cloaks on hooks, chairs still lying where they’d scattered in the chaos of the tribe’s last moments.

On a table, in plain sight, he found the vessel.

It was lantern-like, of dark hammered silver, and he knew what it was. He’d seen enough of them in the war: chimaera soldiers carried them on long, curved staffs. Madrigal had been holding one when he first set eyes on her on the battlefield at Bullfinch, though he hadn’t understood then what it was, or what she was doing with it.

Or that it was the enemy’s great secret and the key to their undoing.

It was a thurible—a vessel for the capture of souls of the dead, to preserve them for resurrection—and it didn’t look to have been on the table for long. There was dust under it but none on it. Someone had placed it there recently; who, Akiva couldn’t guess, nor why.

Its existence was a mystery in every aspect but one.

Affixed to it with a twist of silver wire was a small square of paper on which was written a word. It was a chimaera word, and under the circumstances the cruelest taunt Akiva could fathom, because it meant hope, and it was the end of his, since it was also a name.

It was Karou.

7

PLEASE NO

From: Zuzana <

rabidfairy@shakestinyfist.net

>

Subject: Please no

To: Karou <

bluekarou@hitherandthithergirl.com

>

Oh Jesus. You’re dead, aren’t you?

8

THE END OF AFTERMATH

And this was Akiva’s new hell: to have everything change and nothing change.

Here he was, back in Eretz, not dead and not imprisoned, still a soldier of the Misbegotten and hero of the Chimaera War: the celebrated Beast’s Bane. It was absurd that he should find himself back in his old life as if he were the same creature he had been before a blue-haired girl brushed past him in a narrow street in another world.

He wasn’t. He didn’t know what creature he was now. The vengeance that had sustained him all these years was gone, and in its place was an ash pit as vast as Loramendi: grief and shame, that gnawing wretchedness, and, at the edges, an unfixed sense of… imperative. Of purpose.

But what purpose?

He had never thought ahead to these times. “Peace,” it was being feted in the Empire, but Akiva could only think of it as aftermath. In his mind, the end had always been the fall of Loramendi and revenge on the monsters whose savage cheers had played accompaniment to Madrigal’s death. What would come next, he had barely thought of. He supposed he had assumed he would be dead, like so many other soldiers, but now he could see that it would be too easy to die.

Live in the world you’ve made, he thought to himself, rising each morning. You don’t deserve to rest.

Aftermath was ugly. Every day he was forced to bear witness to it: the slave caravans on the move, the burned hulls of temples, squat and defiled, the crushed hamlets and wayside inns, always columns of smoke rising in the distance. Akiva had set this in motion, but if his own vengeance was long spent, the emperor’s wasn’t. The free holdings were crushed—an accomplishment made easier by the pitiful fact that untold thousands of chimaera had fled to Loramendi for safety, only to burn alive in its fall—and the Empire’s expansion was under way.

The populous north of the chimaera lands were but the cusp of a great wild continent, and though the main strength of Joram’s armies had come home, patrols continued on, moving like the shadow of death deeper south and deeper, razing villages, burning fields, making slaves, making corpses. It might have been the emperor’s work, but Akiva had made it possible, and he watched with bleak eyes, wondering how much Karou had seen before she died, and how acute had been her hate by the end.

If she were alive, he thought, he would never be able to look her in the eye.

If she were alive.

Her soul remained, but because of Akiva, the resurrectionist was dead. In one of his darker moments, the irony started him laughing and he couldn’t stop, and the sounds that came from him, before finally tapering into sobs, were so far from mirth they might have been the forced inversion of laughter—like a soul pulled inside out to reveal its rawest meat.

He was in the Kirin caves when that happened, no one to hear him. He went back to retrieve the thurible, which he had hidden there. It was a day’s journey, and he sat with the vessel and tried to believe it was Karou, but, laying his hand on the chill silver, he felt nothing, and such a depth of nothing overwhelmed him that he allowed himself the hope that it was not her soul within—it couldn’t be. He would feel it if it were; he would know. So he made the journey back through the portal to the human world, all the way to Prague, where he peered in her window as he had once before, and beheld… two sleeping figures entwined.

His hope was like an intake of icy air—it hurt—and just as sharp and sudden was his jealousy. In an instant he was hot and cold with it, his hands clenching into fists so tight they burned. A flare of adrenaline coursed through him and left him shaking, and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her, and for the fleeting flash of an instant, he felt relief. Followed by crushing disappointment and self-loathing for what his reaction had been.

He waited for Karou’s friends to wake. That was who it was: the musician and the small girl whose eyes would give Liraz’s a run for ferocity. He watched them throughout the day, hoping at every turn that Karou would show up, but she never did. She wasn’t here, and there was a long moment when her friend stood stock-still, scanning the crowds on the bridge, the roofline, even the sky—such a searching look that it told Akiva she wasn’t accounted for, either.

There were no whispers or edges of rumor in Eretz that hinted at her; there was nothing but the thurible with its singular, terrible explanation.

For a month Akiva let his life carry him along. He did his duty, patrolling the northwestern corner of the former free holdings with its wild coastlines and low, sprawling mountains. Fortresses studded the cliffs and peaks. Most, like this one, were dug into vertical seams in the rock to protect them from aerial assault, but in the end it hadn’t mattered. Cape Armasin had seen one of the fiercest battles of the war—staggering loss of life on both sides—but it had fallen. Slaves now labored at rebuilding the garrison’s walls, whip-wielding masters never far off, and Akiva would find himself watching them, every muscle in his body as tight as wound wires.

He had done this.

Sometimes it was all he could do to stop the screaming in his head from finding its way out, to mask his despair in the presence of kindred and comrades. Other times he managed to distract himself: with sparring, his secret occupation of magic, and with simple companionship and striving to earn the forgiveness of Hazael and Liraz.

And he might have gone on in that way for some time had not the end of… aftermath… come to the Empire.

It happened overnight, and it drew from the emperor such howling wrath, such bloodcurdling unholy fury as to turn storms back to sea and blast the buds of the sycorax trees so they shed their mothwing blossoms unopened in the gardens of Astrae.

In the great wild heart of the land that day by day fell prey to the halting onslaught of slave caravans and carnage, someone started killing angels.

And whoever it was, they were very, very good at it.

9

TEETH

“Hey, Zuze?”

“Hmm?” Zuzana was on the floor with a mirror set up on a chair before her, painting pink dots onto her cheeks, and it was a moment before she could look up. When she did, she saw Mik watching her with that small concern-crease he got between his eyebrows sometimes. Adorable wrinkle. “What’s up?” she asked.

He looked back at the television in front of him. They were at the flat he shared with two other musicians; there was no TV at Karou’s place, where Zuzana mostly lived now—the media circus having finally died down a little—and where they usually spent their nights. Mik was eating a bowl of cereal and catching up on the news while Zuzana got ready for the day’s performance.

Though it was making them a bundle of money, Zuzana was getting restless with the whole thing. The problem with puppet shows is that you have to keep doing them over and over, which requires a temperament she didn’t have. She got bored too easily. Not of Mik, though.

“What is it about you?” she had asked him recently. “I almost never like people, even in tiny doses. But I never get tired of being with you.”

“It’s my superpower,” he had said. “Extreme be-with-able-ness.”

Now he looked back from the TV screen, his concern-crease deepening. “Karou used to collect teeth, right?”

Huh? Mik turned back to the TV, and Zuzana was suddenly very alert. “Why?” she asked again, rising from the floor.

Pointing the remote to click up the volume, Mik said, “You need to see this.”

10

HIVE

“They knew we were coming.”

Eight seraphim stood in an empty village. Evidence of sudden departure was everywhere: doors standing open, chimney smoke, a sack lying where it had tumbled off the back of some wagon and spilled out grain. The angel Bethena found herself turning again to the cradle that lay by the stile. It was carved and polished, so smooth, and she could see finger-divots worn into its sides from generations of rocking. And singing, she thought, as if she could see that, too, and she felt, just for an instant, the agonized pause of the beast mother who had admitted to herself, in that precise spot, that it was too heavy to take as they fled their home.

“Of course they knew,” said another soldier. “We’re coming for them all.” He pronounced it like justice, like the edges of his words might catch the sunlight and glint.

Bethena cast him a glance, weary, weary. How could he muster vehemence for this? War was one thing, but this… These chimaera were simple creatures who grew food and ate it, rocked their children in polished cradles, and probably never spilled a single drop of blood. They were nothing like the revenant soldiers the angels had fought all their lives—all their history—the bruising, brutal monsters that could cut them in half with a blow, send them reeling with the force of their inked devils’ eyes, tear out their throats with their teeth. This was different. The war had never penetrated here; the Warlord had kept it locked at the land’s edges. Half the time, these scattered farm hamlets didn’t even have militias, and when they did, their resistance was pathetic.

The chimaera were broken—Loramendi marked the end. The Warlord was dead, and the resurrectionist, too. The revenants were no more.

“What if we just let them get away?” Bethena said, looking out over the sweet green land, its hazy hills as soft as brushstrokes. Several of her comrades laughed as if she’d made a joke. She let them think she had, though her effort at smiling was not a success. Her face felt wooden, her blood sluggish in her veins. Of course they couldn’t let them go. It was the emperor’s edict that the land be cleared of beasts. Hives, he called their villages. Infestations.

A poor sort of hive, she thought. Village after farm and the conquerors had not once been stung. It was easy, this work. So terribly easy.

The villagers were easy to trace, their livestock having dropped fresh dung along the south road. Of course they would be fleeing for the Hintermost, but they hadn’t gotten far. Not three miles down, the path cut under the arch of an aqueduct. It was a triple-tiered structure, monumental and partially collapsed, so that fallen stones obscured the underpassage. From the sky, the road beyond looked clear, twisting away down a narrow valley that was like a part in green hair, the forest dense on either side. The beasts’ trail—dung and dust and footprints—did not continue.

“They’re hiding under the aqueduct,” said Hallam, he of the vehemence, drawing his sword.

“Wait.” Bethena felt the word form on her lips, and it was spoken. Her fellow soldiers looked to her. They were eight. The slave caravan moved at the lumbering overland pace of their quarry and was a day behind them. Eight seraph soldiers were more than enough to stamp out a village like this. She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, and motioned them down.

It feels like a trap. That had been her thought, but it was a flashback to the war, and the war was over.

The seraphim came down on both sides of the underpassage, trapping the beasts in the middle. Against the possibility of archers—there was no greater equalizer than arrows—they kept close to the stone, out of range. The day was bright, the shadows deepest black. The chimaera’s eyes, thought Bethena, would be accustomed to the dark; light would dazzle them. Get it over with, she thought, and gave her signal. She leapt in, fiery wings blinding, sword low and ready. She expected livestock, cowering villagers, the sound that had become familiar: the moan of cornered animals.

She saw livestock, cowering villagers. The fire of her wings painted them ghastly. Their eyes shone mercury-bright, like things that live for night.

They weren’t moaning.

A laugh; it sounded like a match strike: dry, dark. All wrong. And when the angel Bethena saw what else was waiting under the aqueduct, she knew that she’d been wrong. The war was not over.

Though for her and her comrades, abruptly, it was.

11

THE UNFATHOMABLE WHY

A phantom, the news anchor said.

At first, the evidence of trespass had been too scant to be taken seriously, and of course there was the matter of it being impossible. No one could penetrate the high-tech security of the world’s elite museums and leave no trace. There was only the prickle of unease along the curators’ spines, the chilling and unassailable sense that someone had been there.

But nothing was stolen. Nothing was ever missing.

That they could tell.

It was the Field Museum in Chicago that captured proof of the intruder. First, just a wisp on their surveillance footage: a tantalizing bleed of shadow at the edge of sight, and then for an instant—one gliding misstep that brought her clearly into frame—a girl.

The phantom was a girl.

Her face was turned away. There was a hint of high cheekbone; her neck was long, her hair hidden in a cap. One step and she was gone again, but it was enough. She was real. She had been there—in the African wing, to be precise—and so they went over it inch by inch, and they discovered that something was missing.

And it wasn’t just the Field Museum. Now that they knew what to look for, other natural history museums checked their own exhibits, and many discovered similar losses, previously undetected. The girl had been careful. None of the thefts were easily visible; you had to know where to look.

She’d hit at least a dozen museums across three continents. Impossible or not, she hadn’t left so much as a fingerprint, or tripped a single alarm. As to what she had stolen… the how was quickly drowned out by the unfathomable why.

To what possible end?

From Chicago to New York, London to Beijing, from the museums’ wildlife dioramas, from the frozen, snarling mouths of lions and wild dogs, the jaws of Komodo dragon specimens and ball pythons and stuffed Arctic wolves, the girl, the phantom… she was stealing teeth.

12

I FEEL HAPPY

From: Karou <

bluekarou@hitherandthithergirl.com

>

Subject: Not dead yet

To: Zuzana <

rabidfairy@shakestinyfist.net

>

Not dead yet. (“Don’t want to go on the cart!”)

Where am I and doing what?

You might well ask.

Freaky chick, you say?

You can’t imagine.

I am priestess of a sandcastle

in a land of dust and starlight.

Try not to worry.

I miss you more than I could ever say.

Love to Mik.

(P.S. “I feel happy…. I feel happy….”)

13

ASYMMETRY

Light through lashes.

Karou is only pretending to be asleep. Akiva’s fingertips trace her eyelids, slip softly over the curve of her cheek. She can feel his gaze on her like a glow. Being looked at by Akiva is like standing in the sun.

“I know you’re awake,” he murmurs, close to her ear. “Do you think I can’t tell?”

She keeps her eyes closed but smiles, giving herself away. “Shush, I’m having a dream.”

“It’s not a dream. It’s all real.”

“How would you know? You’re not even in it.” She feels playful, heavy with happiness. With rightness.

“I’m in all of them,” he says. “It’s where I live now.”

She stops smiling. For a moment she can’t remember who she is, or when. Is she Karou? Madrigal?

“Open your eyes,” Akiva whispers. His fingertips return to her eyelids. “I want to show you something.”

All at once she remembers, and she knows what he wants her to see. “No!” She tries to turn away, but he’s got her. He’s prying her eyes open. His fingers press and gouge, but his voice loses none of its softness.

“Look,” he coaxes. Pressing, gouging. “Look.”

And she does.

Karou gasped. It was one of those dreams that invade the space between seconds, proving sleep has its own physics—where time shrinks and swells, lifetimes unspool in a blink, and cities burn to ash in a mere flutter of lashes. Sitting upright, awake—or so she’d thought—she gave a start and dropped the tiger molar she was holding. Her hands flew to her eyes. She could still feel the pressure of Akiva’s fingers on them.

A dream, just a dream. Damn it. How had it gotten in? Lurking vulture dreams, circling, just waiting for her to nod off. She lowered her hands, trying to calm the fierce rush of her heartbeat. There was nothing left to be afraid of. She had already seen the very worst.

The fear was easy to banish. The anger was something else. To have that surge of perfect rightness overcome her, after everything… It was a filthy lie. There was nothing right about Akiva. That feeling had slipped in from another life, when she had been Madrigal of the Kirin, who loved an angel and died for it. But she wasn’t Madrigal anymore, or chimaera. She was Karou. Human.

Sort of.

And she had no time for dreams.

On the table before her, dull in the light of a pair of candles, lay a necklace. It consisted of alternating human and stag teeth, carnelian beads, eight-sided iron filings, long tubes of bat bone, and, making it sag with asymmetry, a lone tiger molar—its mate having skittered under the table when she dropped it.

Asymmetry, when it came to revenant necklaces, was not a good thing. Each element—tooth, bead, and bone—was critical to the resulting body, and the smallest flaw could be crippling.

Karou scraped back her chair and dropped to her knees to grope in the darkness under her worktable. In the cracks of the cold dirt floor her fingers encountered mouse droppings, snipped ends of twine, and something moist she hoped was just a grape rolled off to rot—Let it remain a mystery, she thought, leaving it be—but no tooth.

Where are you, tooth?

It wasn’t like she had a spare. She’d gotten this one in Prague a few days earlier, half of a matched set. Sorry about the missing leg, Amzallag, she imagined herself saying. I lost a tooth.

It started her laughing, a slappy, exhausted sound. She could just imagine how that would go over. Well, Amzallag probably wouldn’t complain. The humorless chimaera soldier had been resurrected in so many bodies that she thought he’d just take it in stride—no pun intended—and learn to do without the leg. Not all of the soldiers were stoic about her learning curve, however. Last week when she had made the griffon Minas’s wings too small to carry his weight, he had not been forbearing.

“Brimstone would never make such a ridiculous mistake,” he’d seethed.

Well, Karou had wanted to retort, with all the gravity and maturity she could muster. Duh.

This wasn’t an exact science to begin with, and wing-to-weight ratios—well. If Karou had known what she would be when she grew up, she might have taken different classes in school. She was an artist, not an engineer.

I am a resurrectionist.

The thought rose up, flat and strange as always.

She crawled farther under the table. The tooth couldn’t have just vanished. Then, through a crack in the stone, a breeze fluted over her knuckles. There was an opening. The tooth must have fallen through the floor.

She sat back. An icy stillness filled her. She knew what she would have to do now. She would have to go downstairs and ask the occupant of the chamber beneath if she could search for it. A deep reluctance pinned her to the floor. Anything but that.

Anything but him.

Was he there now? She thought so; she sometimes imagined she could feel his presence radiating up through the floor. He was probably asleep—it was the middle of the night.

Nothing would make her go to him in the middle of the night. The necklace could just wait until morning.

At least that was the plan.

Then, at her door: a knock. She knew at once who it was. He had no compunction about coming to her in the night. It was a soft knock, and the softness disturbed her most of all—it felt intimate, secret. She wanted no secrets with him.

“Karou?” His voice was gentle. Her whole body tensed. She knew better than anyone what a ruse that gentleness was. She wouldn’t answer. The door was barred. Let him think she was asleep.

“I have your tooth,” he called. “It just landed on my head.”

Well, hell. She couldn’t very well pretend to be asleep if she had just dropped a tooth on his head. And she didn’t want him to think she was hiding from him, either. Damn it, why did he still affect her this way? Severe and straight-backed, her braid swinging in a blue arc behind her, Karou went to the door, drew back the ancient crossbar—which was primarily a defense against him—and opened it. She held out her hand for the tooth. All he had to do was drop it on her palm and walk away, but she knew—of course she knew—it would not be that simple.

With the White Wolf, it never was.

14

THIS DESOLATION OF ANGELS

The White Wolf.

The Warlord’s firstborn, hero of the united tribes and general of the chimaera forces. What remained of them.

Thiago.

He stood in the corridor, elegant and cool in one of his creaseless white tunics, his silken white hair gathered loosely back and tied with a twist of leather. The white hair belied his youth—the youth of his body, at least. His soul was hundreds of years old and had endured endless war and deaths beyond counting, many of them his own. But his body was in its prime, powerful and beautiful to the full extent of Brimstone’s artistry.

It was high-human in aspect and had been made to his own specifications: human at a glance but beast in the details. A carnal human smile revealed sharp cuspids, his strong hands were tipped in black claws, and his legs transitioned at mid-thigh from human to wolf. He was very handsome—somehow both rugged and refined, with an undertone of the wild that Karou felt as a lashing danger whenever he was near.

And no wonder, considering their history.

He had scars now that he hadn’t when she knew him before, when she was Madrigal. A healed slash cleaved one of his eyebrows and spidered up into his hairline; another interrupted the edge of his jaw and jagged down his neck, drawing the eye along his trapezius to the smooth form of his shoulders, straight and full and strong.

He had not come unscathed through the last brutal battles of the war, but he had come through alive and, if possible, even more beautiful for the scars that made him seem more real. In Karou’s doorway now, he was all too real, and too near, too elegant, too there. Always, the White Wolf had been larger than life.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked. The tooth was cupped in his palm; he didn’t offer it up.

“Sleep,” said Karou. “How cute. Do people still do that?”

“They do,” he said. “If they can.” There was pity in his look—pity!—as he added softly, “I have them, too, you know.”

Karou had no idea what he was talking about, but she bristled at his softness.

“Nightmares,” he said.

Oh. Those. “I don’t have nightmares,” she lied.

Thiago was not deceived. “You need to care for yourself, Karou. Or”—he glanced past her into her room—“let others care for you.”

She tried to fill her doorway so that no slice of space might be construed as an invitation to enter. “That’s okay,” she said. “I’m good.”

He moved forward anyway, so that she had to either back away or tolerate his nearness. She stood her ground. He was clean-shaven and smelled faintly, pleasingly, of musk. How he managed to be always pristine in this palace made of dirt, Karou did not know.

Scratch that. She did know. There was no chimaera who would not stoop gladly to see to the White Wolf’s needs. She even suspected his attendant, Ten, of brushing his hair for him. He scarcely had to speak his will; it was anticipated, it was already done.

Right now his will was to enter her room. Anyone else would have subsided at his first hint of approach. Karou did not, though her heartbeat hammered a small-animal panic to be so near him.

Thiago didn’t press. He paused and studied her. Karou knew how she looked: pale and grim and waning thin. Her collarbones were oversharp, her braid was a mess, and her black eyes were glossed with weariness. Thiago was gazing into them.

“Good?” he repeated, skeptical. “Even here?” He brushed her biceps with his fingers and she shrugged away, wishing she were wearing sleeves. She didn’t like anyone to see her bruises, and him least of all; it made her feel vulnerable.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You would ask for help, wouldn’t you, if you needed it? At the very least, you should have an assistant.”

“I don’t need an—”

“There’s no weakness in asking for help.” He paused, then added, “Even Brimstone had help.”

He might as well have reached into her chest and seized her heart.

Brimstone. Yes, he’d had help, including, ostensibly, herself. And yet, where had she been while he was tortured, butchered, burned? What was she doing as his angel murderers stood guard over his scorched remains and ensured his evanescence?

Issa, Yasri, Twiga, every soul in Loramendi. Where was she when their souls drifted off like cut kites and ceased to be?

“They’re dead, Karou. It’s too late. They’re all dead.”

Those were the words that had destroyed Karou’s happiness one month ago in Marrakesh. Just minutes before, she and Akiva had held her wishbone between them and snapped it, and her life as Madrigal—all the memories that Brimstone had taken away for safekeeping—had come rushing back. She could feel the heat of the block she’d laid her head on as the executioner raised his blade, and she could hear Akiva’s scream—a thing ripped from his soul—as if its echo had been trapped in the wishbone, too.

Eighteen years ago, she had died. Brimstone had resurrected her in secret, and she had lived this human life with no knowledge of the one that came before it. But in Marrakesh it had all come back to her, and she had… awakened—joined her life already in progress—to find herself with the fractured wishbone in her hand and Akiva miraculously before her.

That was the most astonishing thing—that they had found each other, even across worlds and lifetimes. For a pure and shining moment, Karou had known joy.

Which Akiva had ended with those words, spoken in deepest shame, most wretched sorrow.

“They’re all dead.”

She hadn’t believed it. Her mind simply would not approach the possibility.

Following the maimed angel Razgut from the skies of Earth into those of Eretz, she had clung to the hope that it would not be—could not be—as Akiva had said. But then she had found the city, and… there was no city. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the devastation. She had lived there once. A million chimaera had lived there. And now? Razgut, foul thing, had laughed at the sight; that was the last she remembered of him. From that moment, she’d been in a daze, and couldn’t remember how they’d parted, or where.

All she’d known in the moment was the ruin of Loramendi. Over that blackened landscape hung something Karou had never felt before: an emptiness so profound that the very atmosphere felt thin, it felt scraped, like an animal hide stretched on a rack and hacked at and hacked at until it was clean.

What she was feeling was the utter absence of souls.

“It’s too late.”

How long she had wandered in the ruins, she could not afterward have said. She was in shock. Memories were at work in her. Her life as Madrigal was twining itself into her self as Karou, and it was fraught with death, with loss, and at the core of her stunned grief was the knowledge that she had enabled it. She had loved the enemy and saved him. She had set him free.

And he had done this.

Bitter, bitter, this desolation of angels.

When a voice splintered the silence, she had spun around, her crescent-moon blades leaping in her hands with the will to make angels bleed. If it had been Akiva there in the ruins, she could not have spared his life again. But it was not him, or any other seraph.

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Well, thinking it over didn't give me any better an idea of what to say about this. If I'm not mistaken, I was the exact same way after reading Daughter of Smoke &amp; Bone. Struck speechless. That is a feat of no mean proportions. I thought there was no possible way that Laini Taylor could follow up with anything even close to what she did to me with the first book. Apparently, when I am wrong, I am SPECTACULARLY wrong.

Reading this was a physical, visceral experience. I didn't just read it with my eyes, my whole body got in on the act. My blood, by turns, either froze or boiled. The hair stood up on my arms, gooseflesh crawled over my whole body, muscles locked down, my stomach dropped and rolled, and my heart clenched, squeezed and shattered. It was ridiculous, incredible, terrifying and fabulous.

In DoS&amp;B, Karou was a badass, true. But she still had an innocence to her, as with the blush of her first true love. That's all gone now. Burned away with all that became ash under her feet in Loramendi and all that's left tastes as bitter in her mouth as that ash would be.

Now Karou has not only got to be tough, she has to be iron. Unbreakble. Even when she's terrified, or when her heart is in pieces. To me, that makes her even more of a badass than she was before.

Akiva, oh my God. He crushes me in this, so much. But no matter how devastated he is, he's determined to do what he promised he would. He's absolutely hopeless that he will ever be forgiven by Karou, but he never stops trying to make it right.

There are so many awesome characters. Mik &amp; Zuzana are so great in this, I love them. And Ziri, a Kirin like Madrigal, who crushed on her before she was executed. *sigh* I really love Ziri, but I can tell already that he is going to break my heart too, in a totally different way. Hazael and Liraz, Akiva's brother &amp; sister, are much more present in the story and you get a closer look at who they are, which is more than they appeared to be previously.

But this is war and it is brutal and harsh. Thiago, that snake, is every bit as savage as he was before and consumed even more by his desire to destroy the angels. *shivers* He's evil and scary as hell to read. This time though, Thiago isn't the only one plotting to spill blood. Jael, the commander of the angel Dominion forces is every bit as cruel and sly as Thiago, but he takes pleasure in being twisted.

Ms. Taylor's writing here is just as lush, rich and spell-binding as everything I've read by her. But I'm not gonna lie, she is going to run your emotions through a wringer with this story. This is a truly amazing read and you can bet your ass I'll be first in line for the next one.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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anastasiaoa

Posted June 9, 2012

can't wait for the sequel!

i've already read the first book daughter of smoke and bone and loved it.i went ahead and pre-order the sequel days of blood and starlight.it picks up where the first book ended.looking forward to reading the next book and the movie adaption of the first book that i'm hearing about.

4 out of 9 people found this review helpful.

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When we last left Karou, her family was missing and possibly dea

When we last left Karou, her family was missing and possibly dead, she had learned many secrets about herself and those around her and was potentially mortal enemies with the angel she loved. ¿It is in this desolate state that we find Karou again in Days of Blood and Starlight.

I hesitate to go into too much detail about the plot points in fear of ruining the unfolding of Karou's new circumstances. Suffice it to say that although Karou believes she is doing exactly what she must do to right the wrongs of her world, she finds herself allied with her previous enemies and with no one to guide her except her own guilty conscience. Caught in the middle of the ages long war between the seraphim and the chimaera, Karou finds she plays a vital role which could change the outcome and end the war forever.

I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone to pieces and it was my Favorite Book of 2011. Sometimes the sophomore effort of a series can leave a reader wanting, this is not the case with Days of Blood and Starlight. After the initial setup, I found this to be quite the page-turner.

As always, Laini Taylor is a master storyteller and brilliant world-builder. The detail with which she has plotted out every detail of Karou's fantastical world is stunning. If you are reading Days of Blood and Starlight for the romance, you might be a tad let down. Akiva and Karou are kept apart for the majority of the story, however, much is revealed through a series of flashbacks that might keep your need for amour sated.

I highly recommend Taylor's latest novel with zero hesitation, but you must read Daughter of Smoke and Bone first! This series is a soon to be classic and a perfect way to escape for a few days.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted November 18, 2013

I loved the first book, and this one was just as good

This book book was wonderful, well paced, and all together amazing. I was dieing to read the 2nd book by the time I was done with the the1st book

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted July 20, 2013

Anonymous

When I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone, it was a book that I have never read before. Brilliant storyline and conflict among characters. The brilliance continues in Days of Blood & Starlight. I couldnt put the book down once i started reading it. Karou and Akiva's battles with themselves and surroundings drew me into their world. I felt I was following them page after page. This book did not dissappoint, and i cant wait to read the third installment to these wonderful, creative books.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 19, 2012

1 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted November 6, 2012

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a lot better in my opinion. N

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a lot better in my opinion. Not that this book wasn't great. It really was. This is definitely one of my favorite series. But it was really confusing. For all of you who are hoping for some Akiva/Karou romance, you may be out of luck until the next book. They didn't really have that much romance in this book. At least, not as much as the previous.

But even after what i have said, this book only took me 4 hours to read. It was great. There are new characters and foes, and some people that you've wanted to learn more about will have their time to shine. Like Zuze; she narrates a lot in the book!

It wasn't as great as i had hoped, but it was still good. I cannot wait for book three!

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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mjm101

Posted February 10, 2015

Weird and wonderful story-telling. I liked the first one, and I

Weird and wonderful story-telling. I liked the first one, and I like this one even more. I can't wait to read the third one when it comes out in paperback.

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"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and d

&quot;Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war. This is not that world. [...] She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.&quot;How could one not want to read DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT after the ending of DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE? Took me a while to get into the story and feel moved though. This could be because we are following the stories of a bunch of new characters now. The many perspectives mean there's less time to learn more about our beloved Karou and Akiva, too. Akiva's siblings are playing a major role. Then there are chapters about what Zuzana and Mik are up to and how they are planning on getting Karou back. The evil angel leaders' plans on the one side, the forming of a chimaera revolution on the other. We are travelling with a slave caravan and find out how the victims are treated in a war without rules. Many new characters, that could bring new meaning, too, make sure that this sequel is a well-rounded read regarding the narrative emphases Laini Taylor is setting.Unforunately, there's not as much travelling in the real world, than in Eretz (One of my favourite parts of DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE were Karou's travels). But Laini Taylor takes us back to Prague where Zuzanne and Mik are worrying about Karou and a second setting in the real world which is located in the desert, under the blazing sun and the bright starry sky. Again, I did feel like I was in a different country and time when I read DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT. Laini Taylor's writing is so vivid and grasping.

4/5 **** DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT - A brutal and, later into the story, very emotional read with strong character additions.

A war-torn country, beasts and angels are fighting for their lives when the battle had been thought to be lost. I pretty much guess the pages of this sequel to DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE capture the darkest moments in our character' lives. DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT didn't have the immediate stun effect on me that the first book had. What can we expect from DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS now?

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I was pretty disappointed with this book. It kind of fell into t

I was pretty disappointed with this book. It kind of fell into that second book syndrome for me. There were a lot of moments that seemed to drag on and on. We're given unnecessary viewpoints that really slowed it up. This book revolved a lot around preparation for the war, but I still don't really get what they are fighting for. Whether they are angel or chimera... There isn't a side I really like right now. I still have high hopes for the next book though.

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Paperback_Princess

Posted August 15, 2014

I went the audiobook route with the second in this series becau

I went the audiobook route with the second in this series because I adored the first audiobook. I find that the narrator spins magic with Taylor’s words and she can paint a beautiful image of all those in Karou’s world. I found this one even more heat breaking than the first as the two worlds plunged into war.

I think what made me most sad was that Karou and Akiva were still at odds the way they were at the end of the first book. There is so much more to their lives that we have yet to learn, but this book did a great job of opening up into what the war looked like for both sides. It gave us a glimpse at what the problem was, at who was continuing this battle that seemed to have to no start. Its almost like Romeo and Juliet the way no one knows what started to feud between the different sides.

I think that it was great that we learned more about the different Chimera and the way that they lived and loved. There was no sense to what was happening to villagers as we learned how the battle between the Angels and Chimera was affecting all.

But even better was that we continued to follow Akiva as he went to try to set things straight. He made decisions that were punishable by death, but we learned that he wasn’t alone in his feelings as he joined other’s who felt the same way. This book broke your heart in ways that you didn’t even know it could be broken.

I loved that we got to see both sides from Karou and Akiva. We saw the underlying cruelty of both sides and we saw the kindness and the hope. I cannot wait for the third book to hit shelves so I can see where this is all going to end.

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Anonymous

Posted April 15, 2014

Worthy Sequel

Romeo & Juliet had it easy. What if they had not taken the easy way out? What if they had lived? What if they had fought on opposite sides of the war? In the first book we were introduced to a world of hidden beauty and magic. In this - the 2nd book - the curtains are pulled away to reveal what was only glimpsed at in the 1st book. And we are witness to the war between Angels & Demons. A war of questioning loyalty, where the lines between good and evil are blurred, and there are no easy or right answers. This is a much darker book than The Daughter of Smoke & Bone but it is a more than worthy sequel.

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Tyranno's bio

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Anonymous

Posted January 29, 2014

Darkness

res three

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Anonymous

Posted January 13, 2014

All that i expected..

A lot darker than the first and the heroes were never in a good place. Karou is filled with guilt and shame for her perceived wrong to her people that she allows herself into being bullied into doing things in the name of vengeance and war that first book Karou would never think of. And Akiva is also filled with shame and anger and self hatred for his actions...so it a book full of pain and suffering both physical and mental. Karou an Akiva are both filled with pain and mistrust towards each other, but it is understandable based on the history between their people, and what they both witnessed and endured when they still were wide-eye and full of hope. But towards the end, you can still see a glimmer of that hope despite everything, that Karou may still yet live up to the meaning of her name. But I know it will be a while, if the plans of the Dominion for the world of humans are anything to go by...I look forward to seeing how Humans react to these Angels in their midst’s. I think that they may surprise the Angels and Demons alike. Akiva I think is right to fear a war between their world and the Humans....if one thing humans have proven.....they know how to create destruction and death. But they also are capable of never-ending good deeds, and hope. So I hope ...despite all signs...we get a happy ending for both worlds. Fingers crossed.

Like the first book, I loved the world building. It is rich and seems so real. All the characters introduced add more to the world and to the experience of the people in it, even the ones that our hero and heroine...if that is what they are in the end. It is kind of up for debate. Which is another thing I liked about this series...it does not try to make anything black and white. Who is the good guy, who is the bad? Who is your enemy, who isn't? And look how quickly that can change based on the situation you face. It shows that everyone is the hero in their own tail, and the villain in another's. Who decides which is true? And how?

I look forward to the third and final installment. It promises to be very exciting.

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Anonymous

Posted September 18, 2013

Amazing book

Utter perfection, is Laini taylors written word.

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pepsibob

Posted September 7, 2013

Outstanding!

Outstanding!

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Anonymous

Posted September 6, 2013

Good book.

I liked it.

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Anonymous

Posted September 3, 2013

Exciting Sequel

This was every bit as exciting as the first book. Laini is a gifted writer with a flare for story telling. I can't wait for the next book in this series.

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My Ultimate Favorite Series
I unfortunately just finished readi

My Ultimate Favorite Series

I unfortunately just finished reading this. At least when I finished Daughter of Smoke &amp; Bone I had this one to jump right on. But now I have to wait til April 2014, FRICKIN APRIL 2014!!! for Dreams of Gods &amp; Monsters. But I digress...

This book and the one before it are the type of books that you want to know what happens, but you never want to end. Even as I got closer and closer to that last page, I still devoured every word, careless disregarding the rise in page numbers. It is one of those books that as soon as you are done, you could go right back to Page 1 and start reading it all over and still have all the same feels you had the first time through.

I have never been more in love with a book series than this one. I am hopeless devoted to any and everything Laini Taylor may ever write that is in any regard to the world she created in this series. This book can be put in no other category. It can't be compared to others. It is in a class all of its own. There is no aspect of it that is anywhere similar to anything you have ever read before.

Ms. Taylor, the only thing I implore of you, please continue writing. I can promise you I will be there.

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